Pre-launch Customization

In FFXIV: ARR they allowed players before the launch of the game to make an account in advance and do the full character customization before launch.
The customization screen was made available and you could spend your time creating templates and saving them to your account.

The benefit? On launch, you didn't have to use up any time to make your character. You could essentially hop right into the game. For those who try to be among the "firsts" this was a great thing because you didn't have to have the rushed feel of character creation for the sake of min/maxing your time leveling... or whatever.
Even if you're not a "firsts" kind of person it's still beneficial so if you want to start and level up with friends you don't have to wait on each other during the character creation process. You'll already have it done into a template which you were able to take your time on in adjusting every minor detail.

TL;DR
I think it is a great idea to let people play with customization before launch and save templates. As soon as the game launches and loads up you can jump right into the world and play. I think this sort of tool was very awesome to have and let me tend to every detail without a rushing feeling of "I have to hurry through this cause the game is here and I want to play this game NOW!"

I'm really hoping Carbine does this because I'm so torn between two races and it is going to come down to how well I can tailor either race to the aesthetic I want! Clearly something I want to mess with before launch! ^.^

Not exactly something I'd march on Carbine to demand but, that being said, it is something I'd use if it was made available to us. Heck I'd probably be on there just killing time while exploring the customization options available to us... by making the oddest looking toons I can imagine.

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"He's what... two? two-and-a-half feet tall? What's he going to do, drag the gun around on a little cart?"​

I am all for this, but with the addition of a character test area it would be even better.
Like in Spore (yeah, I know..) you could have a little area, with many different lighting options, to test out the movement, the emotes, and the attack animations.

[13:31] <Blankspace> I need a new drink[13:31] <Blankspace> I trust no one but you[13:34] <Blankspace> Kat, the amount of love I have for the drinks that you make me is not able to be described in words anyone knows

No, but evidently you missed an art lesson. Negative space = empty area.
I agree that the big spacey posts are a little irritating. Mind toning it down a bit? You can get the same anticipation effect other ways, like a single press of the enter key, an ellipsis, or a few hyphens.

On topic: I would really appreciate a feature in which I can plan my character before launch. My guild wants to be Exile but I'm still not sure what race to make my character. If I could see more female Granok or human options it would make it much easier for me.
Even some spreadsheets of each modifier would help, actually.

I think that this would be a nice feature to have pre-launch because there is nothing worse than repeating the cycle of jumping in to game, dislike a specific feature or wish you chose something different, log out and remake I have lost count on how many times this happened to me.

A lot of people worry about losing their character name when having to recreate, what about having a system like GW2 where a character name is locked to the count for 24 hours if it gets deleted?

Having beta access before launch if there are mass invites or open beta might eliminate the character creation issue since there will be an opportunity to play around with things unless they add more customization features at launch.

A lot of people worry about losing their character name when having to recreate, what about having a system like GW2 where a character name is locked to the count for 24 hours if it gets deleted?

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I'm in favor of this. Though I think 24 hours is a little long. It would allow some people to sit on the name for days at a time if they just made then deleted. Maybe a little shorter like 12 or 8 hours.

Having beta access before launch if there are mass invites or open beta might eliminate the character creation issue since there will be an opportunity to play around with things unless they add more customization features at launch

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Pre-Ordering could include a "Character Creation" system. People could preorder and/or download the game up to a few weeks before the servers were turned on for launch day. That inbetween time could be used for character creation.